“’It was in this way.  We had gone on the May Day for a round voyage of seven days, but a hogshead got loose and started one of our plates, so that we had to put back into port for twelve hours.  I left the ship and came home, thinking what a surprise it would be for my wife, and hoping that maybe she would be glad to see me so soon.  The thought was in my head as I turned into my own street, and at that moment a cab passed me, and there she was, sitting by the side of Fairbairn, the two chatting and laughing, with never a thought for me as I stood watching them from the footpath.

“’I tell you, and I give you my word for it, that from that moment I was not my own master, and it is all like a dim dream when I look back on it.  I had been drinking hard of late, and the two things together fairly turned my brain.  There’s something throbbing in my head now, like a docker’s hammer, but that morning I seemed to have all Niagara whizzing and buzzing in my ears.

“’Well, I took to my heels, and I ran after the cab.  I had a heavy oak stick in my hand, and I tell you I saw red from the first; but as I ran I got cunning, too, and hung back a little to see them without being seen.  They pulled up soon at the railway station.  There was a good crowd round the booking-office, so I got quite close to them without being seen.  They took tickets for New Brighton.  So did I, but I got in three carriages behind them.  When we reached it they walked along the Parade, and I was never more than a hundred yards from them.  At last I saw them hire a boat and start for a row, for it was a very hot day, and they thought, no doubt, that it would be cooler on the water.

“’It was just as if they had been given into my hands.  There was a bit of a haze, and you could not see more than a few hundred yards.  I hired a boat for myself, and I pulled after them.  I could see the blur of their craft, but they were going nearly as fast as I, and they must have been a long mile from the shore before I caught them up.  The haze was like a curtain all round us, and there were we three in the middle of it.  My God, shall I ever forget their faces when they saw who was in the boat that was closing in upon them?  She screamed out.  He swore like a madman and jabbed at me with an oar, for he must have seen death in my eyes.  I got past it and got one in with my stick that crushed his head like an egg.  I would have spared her, perhaps, for all my madness, but she threw her arms round him, crying out to him, and calling him “Alec.”  I struck again, and she lay stretched beside him.  I was like a wild beast then that had tasted blood.  If Sarah had been there, by the Lord, she should have joined them.  I pulled out my knife, and—­well, there!  I’ve said enough.  It gave me a kind of savage joy when I thought how Sarah would feel when she had such signs as these of what her meddling had brought about.  Then I tied the bodies into the boat, stove a plank, and stood by until they had sunk.  I knew very well that the owner would think that they had lost their bearings in the haze, and had drifted off out to sea.  I cleaned myself up, got back to land, and joined my ship without a soul having a suspicion of what had passed.  That night I made up the packet for Sarah Cushing, and next day I sent it from Belfast.